UA doctor offers reason for near-death experience

by Sheryl Kornman on Jun 03, 2006, under Education, Local

Knowing how quantum mechanics influences biomolecular functioning can help medical personnel help their patients, says Dr. Stuart Hameroff, professor emeritus of anesthesiology and psychology at the University of Arizona.

Hameroff’s lecture at University Medical Center on Thursday was aimed at teaching medical personnel how applications of quantum mechanics theory, energy medicine, meditative processes and better understanding the subconscious can help people heal.

Hameroff, the director of the University of Arizona Center for Consciousness Studies, explained how parts of nerve cells decompose as Alzheimer’s disease sets in and causes a loss of cognitive function. Eventually, the person with Alzheimer’s dies because organs cannot function.

As the body fails, consciousness “leaks out” of the body and becomes part of the “quantum void,” he said. In that state, consciousness can exist “for a time.”

This phenomenon may explain the near-death experiences of people who remember being outside their own body and can describe what they saw happening around them, he said.

Hameroff said quantum mechanics can help explain how meditation and “healing energy” can heal at the cellular level.

He cited research that shows monks who meditate have increased electrical activity in their cells.

People who say they use their healing energy to heal others by passing their hands over diseased areas may be able to affect activity inside a cell, he said.

Quantum theorists call this “local entanglement” – the combining of a person’s “healing energy” with another person’s cellular energy.

Dr. John M. Porter, the trauma section director at UMC, said learning about the ” quantum paradigm” in health and disease is helpful to him as a trauma surgeon.

“As a trauma surgeon, we rearrange the anatomy. We try to do surgery now as gently as possible so you don’t alter all the things you’re rearranging. The healing process is much deeper than that.”

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